The Wedding Plan

by Melissa Shirley

  * * *

  NAT: I wasn’t upset that he didn’t remember me. I actually thought it might be better that he didn’t. Honestly, there was a reason why Alex called me Rattty Nattie and it wasn’t because I was a big tattler.

  191 Days Earlier

  * * *

  When Jacob agreed to let Nat pick the movie, he’d expected some romance, some girlie girl lingo about hair and shoes, maybe some hard-body hero, maybe some sex he could use to help get her motor running. Just the way he’d used that thirty colors of whatever movie last week. But instead of leaving him an opening with her choice, she’d gone for blood, gore, and people being shredded in the darkness—by a clown, no less. He’d spent most of the last hour with his head hidden behind her shoulder while they spooned on the couch.

  As the credits rolled, she turned in his arms to face him. “Did you like it?”

  He chuckled. “No. Not even a little bit.” Okay. He’d enjoyed holding her, but how many times could he tell her that before she stopped shivering and burrowing closer? “I might never be able to see a circus or a rodeo again either.”

  “This movie is a classic.” She shrugged. “Didn’t you watch scary movies when you were young?”

  “No. I had movie night with my grandma. I grew up on Driving Miss Daisy, anything with Morgan Freeman actually, and you know that guy who played Robin Hood? Once she saw him…” He clucked his tongue and shook his head. Tuesday movie nights with Lucia were one of his favorite memories. When he was young, she’d cuddle him into her side, pass him the bowl of popcorn, and together they watched whatever movie she’d brought home. As he grew older, she sat beside him, popcorn between them and they laughed through comedies, she cried—okay, sometimes he did, too—through dramas, and they sang through old musicals. It was a tradition they hadn’t broken until he went away to college.

  Nat threw her leg over his and maneuvered until she had her hands under her chin on his chest. “Can I ask you something?” God, when she looked at him like this—wide, clear eyes, just a hint of a smile—he couldn’t deny her anything. Nor could he speak, so he nodded. “Why did you agree to do this? With me?” She wobbled her chin back and forth in what he guessed was shaking her head. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me, but you don’t need a fix up from some network.” She shrugged. “Or anyone. Women have to be lined up to get their chance with you.”

  Her words warmed him, made him want to scoop her up and carry her to bed, but it wasn’t often anymore that they just sat or lay around and talked. So, he considered her question. Seriously considered it before he spoke. “Before you came into my life, I was different. More reserved, I guess. I didn’t grow up around people my own age, so I never learned how to flirt or how to talk to girls. I was kind of a nerd.”

  She smiled. “You talk to me just fine, and in case you haven’t noticed, I’m a girl.”

  He stroked her hair with one hand and slid three fingers of the other under the hem of her shirt. He almost moaned when they brushed against her silky skin. “Oh, I noticed. Believe me, I noticed.” He knew what she meant, but damned if he was going to lie there with her in his arms and point out his own flaws, let her in on all the reasons he’d been alone, lonely enough to agree to marrying someone he’d never met. “I wish I would have known you sooner.”

  Snuggling closer, she adjusted so that more of her body covered his. “You did know me.”

  He shook his head. No way. “I would remember you.”

  With a cock of her head to one side, she narrowed her eyes. “And I’m a little hurt that you don’t.” She paused for a minute, and he assumed she was giving him time to try to recall how he’d supposedly known her, but he couldn’t concentrate with their bodies aligned in such a way. All he could think of was pushing the shirt over her head, burying himself inside her. “Oh, come on, Jacob. I was eight or nine and you were twelve, thirteen maybe?” He shook his head and she dropped her mouth open. “Seriously? I made my mom spend her last three dollars on a new hair bow so I could tie my curls back and look pretty for you.”

  That little girl who’d spent the entire summer following him around was Nat? He didn’t remember much more than her being under foot all the time that year, but he had a vague recollection of a tea party he’d played with her while he was sick in his room. He’d had chicken pox, maybe? Or was it measles? He grinned. “You kissed me.”

  If this woman had a smile that didn’t make his pants tighter, he hadn’t seen it yet.

  “And I got chicken pox.” She wobbled her head from side to side. “It was worth it.”

  “That was you.” Now he remembered. The long, blonde hair, the cute little dresses, the red and black polka dot bow. She’d been a nuisance he’d missed when she stopped coming with her mother to work.

  “I had such a crush on you—the cool, older man in my life.” She stretched her neck so she could replicate the soft kiss she’d laid on him all those years ago. “You were the first boy I ever noticed. The first one I kissed.”

  He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten that, forgotten her. “Is that why you agreed to this?” The answer didn’t really matter now, wouldn’t change how he felt.

  She bit the side of her lip. “No.” She blew out a breath. “I signed that contract so I would finally have the money to get out of this town, away from my mom, maybe build a life I wouldn’t be so ashamed of.”

  He hugged her tighter. “Nat, there’s no shame in being…poor.” What kind of educated man couldn’t think of a better word?

  She chuckled and pushed off him, moved to the end of the sofa by his feet. Dammit. He’d played it so wrong.

  “Easy for you to say, Dr. Rich Boy. You don’t know what it’s like having the town drunk as your mama, or not having enough money to go to the laundromat so you have to wear dirty clothes to school, or eat bologna sandwiches four nights a week because it was all you had in the house.” Thankfully, she didn’t sound mad, more resigned to what she had been. “This was like a dream for me. And when I found out it was you, I was…curious.”

  What he wouldn’t do to give her everything she ever wanted. From this day forward… “Does the reality live up to the memory?”

  She tilted her head as if considering him through those same eight-year-old eyes that had worshipped him almost twenty years earlier. “The memory is pretty good….” Her smile came in stages—one corner then a slow spread to the other. “But I think being here with you now, the grown-up, all smart and handsome, charming you, is right up there.”

  “Yeah?” He curved his body until he was almost wrapped around her.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  If he ever lost her, he wouldn’t be able to go on.

  * * *

  ELLEN QUINN: It breaks my heart to know what my girls went through because of my drinking. Lucia was actually a Godsend. After she fired me, and I didn’t give her much choice, she made sure the girls didn’t want. Every year, I could set the calendar by it, the girls had new school clothes and shoes, supplies and their school lunch bills paid in advance. She always denied it, but I knew. Lucia Gilden has done a lot of good in this town, but what she did for my girls…I’ll never be able to repay the kindness.

  Her back ached, her eyes burned and she no longer had any feeling in her left arm—the one tucked between her and Jacob, but she’d rather lose the arm than move. Here, she could look at him all she wanted, concentrate on that one dimple when he smiled, that curl lying on his forehead, the twitch of his eyelids while he slept. She didn’t worry about her ever-expanding body, didn’t care about the world outside their house. Only Jacob mattered. Until the sun came up anyway. Then he would go to work and she would have nothing to do but wait for him, and think.

  All that thinking… on how she didn’t fit into his world, would never belong in a room with crystal champagne flutes or first edition Twain novels; on how he never made her feel like she didn’t belong; on how they would manage a baby together, or worse, apart.

  Her stomach tighten
ed, and she gasped. Not again. For two days she’d been battling—well, surviving was a more accurate description—pain deep in her abdomen. Pain that shortened her breath and more than once doubled her over. She’d been hoping to wait for her next appointment before she mentioned it to anyone, but as she tried to sit up, she yelped and Jacob eyes popped open.

  “What is it, Nat? Are you okay?”

  She nodded, swallowed hard and tried to smile. “I think I laid the same way for too long.” But it was more and she knew it. She winced against the pain. “Can you help me to the bathroom?”

  “Nat?” Fear. No, terror, widened his eyes, drew the color from his face.

  “It’s okay. I just need to pee.” She tried not to lean on him too heavily, but each step burned something in her stomach and by the time they made it to the bathroom, she would have collapsed without him. This was bad. But when she saw the blood, she knew she had to tell him. “Jacob?”

  Instead of answering he opened the door. “Are you okay?”

  How a doctor could panic so vividly escaped her understanding, but there he stood, wringing his hands, face a blank shade of ash, eyes dark with fear. “We need to…” she winced as a sharp pain pinched her insides. “We need to go to the hospital, okay? It’s probably nothing. But…”

  Just as quickly as he’d answered her call, he wiped his face clean of fear and came to crouch in front of her. “Okay. Tell me what you want me to do. Ambulance or drive ourselves?”

  “You’re the doctor. You pick.” Not only could she not decide—speed or reclining during transport—she was afraid to move.

  He pulled out his phone, dialed for an ambulance, and squeezed her fingers. “It’s gonna be okay, Nat. They’re on their way.”

  * * *

  JACOB: I have never been so scared in my life as I was then. I’m a doctor, yes, but not a baby doctor and I could see her pain. It’s such a helpless feeling, seeing the person you love so much in such pain. I couldn’t think. I just kept praying, standing there like a fool, holding her hand and praying.

  * * *

  In the hour she’d been at the hospital, she’d been poked, examined, ultra-sounded, measured, poked some more and consoled. “It’s okay, Nat,” was Jacob’s new favorite phrase and quite frankly, it annoyed her. No one had told her one damned thing except not to worry. Which made no sense to her whatsoever. Of course, she was going to worry.

  Finally, the doctor returned, folder in her hand and smile on her face. “Okay. I have the skinny on the baby.” She smiled, a little too pretty to be so close to Jacob. Maybe this wasn’t the time for jealousy, but it was a better alternative to crying as far as Nat was concerned. “So far, baby is doing great. Heartrate is good. We can see him moving on the monitor. All good news.”

  Jacob squeezed Nat’s hand again and she pulled away. The bad news hadn’t been delivered yet. “But?”

  The doctor nodded at Nat. “Have you experienced any abdominal trauma over the last few days or weeks?”

  Nat shook her head. “Not what I would call trauma.” Jacob whipped his head toward Nat. dammit. She should have told him. “The other day, day before yesterday, I tripped on the stairs and I caught myself…” She blew out a breath. “But I felt something. I can’t really describe it, and I felt fine until today when I had some stomach pains and the bleeding started, so…”

  “Oh, Nat.” He smoothed her hair, held her hand, but the disappointment…she couldn’t bear that and looked away.

  “Okay.” The doctor nodded. “These things happen, and to be honest we wouldn’t be able to say for sure that’s why, but you have an abruption. A placenta abruption.”

  “That’s bad.” She didn’t need confirmation to know it, to feel it in her heart.

  The doctor nodded. “It could be, but you’re here, and we’re going to keep you here for a few days at least. Could be longer.” She outlined a treatment plan that Nat could only grasp part of…steroids for the baby’s lung development, bed rest.

  “Can’t I rest at home? I live with a doctor.” A doctor who’d stopped holding her hand, whose finger flicked back and forth over the rail of her bed and who wouldn’t meet her gaze.

  “Maybe in a couple days, but I want to monitor the baby for a while.” She patted Nat’s leg. “And you. We can treat this and everything can turn out just fine, but this is a serious thing for both of you. Complications are dangerous. So, let’s just wait a few days, and see where we are then.”

  Nat closed her eyes. She loved this baby. Would do whatever it took to make sure the baby was safe. God what had she been thinking?

  “Get some rest. I’ll be back in the morning.”

  As soon as the doctor was gone, Nat turned back to Jacob. “You should go home. Get some sleep. You have to work in the morning.” It was after four AM already.

  “I’m not working in the morning. I’m going to be here.”

  “Jacob—”

  “Nat, I’m not leaving.”

  “Well you’re not going to sit here and stare at me for however long I’m in here either.” She needed time to process this and to find a place to tuck her guilt.

  He bit his lip, rubbed a hand over the baby. “I’m scared too, Nat.”

  How could she kick him out now? Even if she needed to cry for a good few hours, she couldn’t make him leave. “Okay. But no staring.”

  “Deal.”

  “And if I start ugly bawling, you have to go to the cafeteria or something.”

  “Nat—”

  “I mean it. Sometimes a girl just need to cry, and I kind of feel like this might be one of those times. And I don’t really want you to see me like that, okay?”

  He nodded. “If I cry will you pretend to be asleep?” A tear trickled down his cheek.

  “Come here.” She held out her arms. There was something to be said for sharing their pain. And they did until the sun streamed through her window.

  * * *

  DR. REINHART: Thanks to the town planning commission, Rangers End Regional Hospital has a state of the art OB/GYN center, so I was confident we could get Nat back on her feet and take care of the baby if it happened that he came too soon. But Nat followed hospital rules from the get-go. It was kind of tough to get rid of her even. I think she stayed with us for a good month and a half? I think so. And she didn’t want to go home then, but that’s normal with these kinds of things. But the way Jacob took care of her…he really got on the nerves of the nursing staff. There wasn’t enough ice in the water. Then there was too much ice. She needed another pillow. God, why did she have so many pillows? It was always something, and we knew it was him and not her, but it was so cute. We didn’t stay mad.

  15

  Nat gave Jacob’s forearm a squeeze as she moved closer. He’d been a real trouper while she was lying in her hospital bed, took care of the house and the yard and her. No one had ever taken such care of her. “I never did thank you.”

  “For being a husband while you were sick?” He lifted his eyebrows. “It’s what husbands do.”

  “Not all husbands, and not so well, either.” She hadn’t wanted for anything. He’d brought books and magazines, candy and movies. And the flowers…her room looked like a floral shop had opened inside it.

  His skin turned pink in inches starting at his neck and moving up to his forehead. “I knew you were scared. I wanted…” He shook his head.

  “And I know you were scared, even though you were so strong.” Strong wasn’t even a moderately accurate description. When she’d gotten an infection, when her fever almost sent her straight to the delivery room, when she’d believed the baby stopped moving…he’d given her hope, a reason to hang on and not lose her mind. “Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you.”

  He nodded and kissed her forehead, then her cheek, then ever so slowly, his blue eyes searching hers, he captured her lips. God this man knew how to kiss, made everything from her toes to her hair tingle. Her heart thumped and pounded and she fisted a handful of his shirt, desper
ate to hang onto to this moment, to pour everything she felt for him into the kiss. When he pulled back, she leaned her head on his shoulder.

  “You’ve been a better husband than I ever thought I deserved.”

  He covered her hand with his and gulped. “Not yet, okay? We’ll talk, but not here. Not now.”

  She nodded as the screen came back to life.

  * * *

  LUCIA: I’ve had ninety-six birthday and ninety-six birthday parties. I was quite happy to postpone until Natasha was back home. I couldn’t have a party without my family with me, my entire family, although, I’ve come to realize it might be time to prune some of the branches off the family tree.

  138 Days earlier

  * * *

  It felt good to stretch her legs, get up off the couch even if it was only for a glass of water from the kitchen. Jacob would never know. He was outside with Jesse and John while Lucia had Ryhan and Lanie involved in a conversation about some big event in town later in the week. No one would notice if she walked ten steps into her own kitchen.

  But as she approached the door, the unmistakable nasally sound of Jacob’s mother’s voice—a voice that could have bent steel—shrilled from inside. Nat was torn—eavesdrop or walk in. She didn’t make a conscious decision, but stood silently as Jacob’s mother continued. “Oh, Zach,”—Jacob’s uncle—“you should see her. Big as a whale and making my poor baby wait on her hand and foot.” She paused. “I know. How the hell am I supposed to just stand by and let this little gold digger take everything my boy has worked so hard for? You know as well as I do now that she has this kid—and you read the background check; it might not even be Jacob’s—she has her hooks so deep in him…I’ve been trying to get him alone all night to talk to him about taking custody once this whole charade”—she pronounced it sher-odd—“is finished. It would be so much easier if you were here. You know how she gets with me, but I’m going to show Mother all the things the investigator dug up. Maybe she’ll be able to talk some sense into him.” Nat’s stomach heaved and she braced a hand against the door frame. “All I know is that I will never accept this little piece of trailer trash as my daughter-in-law.”